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  • What is Social Impact Design?
    • Overview
    • Most Urgent Questions
  • About the Foundation
    • Overview
    • Initiatives
    • People
    • Awards
      • Overview
      • Grantees
      • Curry Stone Design Prize Winners
      • Social Design Circle Honorees
    • News
    • Connect with Us
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  • Advocacy

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  • Conflict and Disaster

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  • Urban Strategies

Environmental Sustainability

03 | The Street As a Revolution

Podcast
Should designers be outlaws? Mark Lakeman of the City Repair Project discusses motives and methods for igniting neighborhood change, street by street.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

06-07 | Fighting for Dignified Housing, Part 1 & 2

Podcast
Is the right to housing real? Jonathan Kirschenfeld and Brenda Rosen share their thoughts on the right to housing, and methodologies for doing supportive housing well.
  • Housing

09 | Add, Transform, and Reuse!

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Is the right to housing real? Lacaton & Vassal Deconstructs Their Widely Acclaimed methods for the Readaptation of Modernist housing blocks in France.
  • Housing

117 | What a Great Time to Be Alive

Podcast
Crisis in Climate, Crisis in Design Eric Corey Freed award-winning American architect, author, speaker and green strategist, joins us to talk about the state of the union in green design.
  • Environment

118 | Design Politics in the Climate Emergency

Podcast
Crisis in Climate, Crisis in Design Dr. Kian Goh, RA, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. She researches the relationships between urban ecological design, spatial politics, and social mobilization in the context of climate change and global urbanization.
  • Education
  • Environment

119 | Redesigning Our Relationship with the Earth

Podcast
Crisis in Climate, Crisis in Design Starhawk is an author, activist, permaculture designer and teacher, and a prominent voice in modern earth-based spirituality and ecofeminism.
  • Environment

120 | Beyond Green Design

Podcast
Crisis in Climate, Crisis in Design Mary Ann Lazarus is an American architect and longtime leader in the field of sustainable design.
  • Environment

121 | Buildings Made of Sky

Podcast
Crisis in Climate, Crisis in Design Bruce King, PE, natural building advocate, joins us to discuss his new book “The New Carbon Architecture: Building to Cool the Planet”
  • Environment
  • Housing
  • Urban Strategies

122 | Imagining New Futures for the Planet

Podcast
Crisis in Climate, Crisis in Design Alex Steffen is an award-winning writer, speaker and foresight consultant, focused on climate change and planetary sustainability.
  • Environment

123 | Design’s Race & Rescue Mission

Podcast
Crisis in Climate, Crisis in Design Dr. Ken Yeang is a Malaysian architect and ecologist delivering and pioneering the field of hyper-green architecture.
  • Environment

124 | Five Things About Social Impact Design

Podcast
What Now for Social Impact Design? Our Special Projects Director Eric J. Cesal is a designer, writer, noted post-disaster expert, and podcast host.
  • Environment

13 | How to Design a School for $200

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can design challenge inequality? David Barragán of Al Borde discusses how design can empower a community to become their own designers & builders.
  • Community Development

14 | Combining Ancient Traditions and Contemporary Social Design

Podcast
Can design challenge inequality? Active Social Architecture is a Kigali-based architecture practice that designs and builds contemporary re-elaborations of vernacular Rwandan architecture.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

16 | Design, Development and Disaster Mitigation in Pakistan

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can design prevent disaster? Yasmeen Lari details the growth of resilient architecture and sustainable development in Pakistan.
  • Conflict and Disaster

19-20 | The Trajectory of Social Design, Part 1 & 2

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
CSF Grantee
Can we design community engagement? Sergio Palleroni discusses his thirty year career in Social Impact Design
  • Community Development
  • Environment
  • Housing

24-25 | Tools for Urban Action, Part 1 & 2

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can design reclaim public space? Ecosistema Urbano & Interboro share their stories about how they shaped a practice around public space.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development
  • Urban Strategies

26 | Making Public Space Productive

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can design reclaim public space? Chelina Odbert and Jennifer Toy of the Kounkuey Design Initiative share their thoughts on how to engage community.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

27-28 | How All Space Becomes Public Space, Part 1 & 2

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can design reclaim public space? EXYZT and Basurama detail new ways to think about public space.
  • Urban Strategies

31 | Clothing, Currency and Community

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can we design a slum-friendly city? Anshu Gupta of Goonj discusses his unique methodology for community development: clothes as currency.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development
  • Environment

32 | Slum Networking, Explained.

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can we design a slum-friendly city? Himanshu Parikh discusses the evolution of cities and slums, and how a historicist read can lead us to new engineering innovations.
  • Environment
  • Healthcare
  • Housing

33-34 | Finding Plenty in a World of Scarcity, Part 1 & 2

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
How do we design with scarcity? Line Ramstad discusses the origin of Gyaw Gyaw and introduces their methods.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

35 | Big Problems, Simple Solutions

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
How do we design with scarcity? Ashok Gadgil speaks to us about simple, low cost solutions to global public health.
  • Advocacy

36 | Changing the Way We Make Fire

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
How do we design with scarcity? Dean Still of Aprovecho talks to us about the history of Aprovecho and their work to improve cookstove technology.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

37 | Finding Holistic Design Through History

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
How do we design with scarcity? Yatin Pandya discusses his philosophy of ‘holistic design’ and how he seeks new solutions for India’s future.
  • Environment
  • Housing

42-43 | A Green Vision for the Future of Cities Part 1 & 2

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can a city work as an ecosystem? Gail Vittori and Pliny Fisk introduce our hosts to their work, thinking at multiple scales about how to live & work ecologically.
  • Advocacy
  • Environment

44 | The Blue Economy of the Future

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can a city work as an ecosystem? Jan Jongert of Superuse Studios shares experiences in designing new forms of ecology within the city.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

45 | Finding Nature Beneath our Feet

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can a city work as an ecosystem? Nance Klehm shares her experiences as a ‘radical ecologist’ and her strategies for helping cities connect with nature.
  • Environment

46 | Gardening as Urban Action

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Can a city work as an ecosystem? Marco Clausen of Prinzessinnengärten discusses how they came to pioneer a form of mobile gardening, and the positive impacts it has had on their city.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

55-56 | Designing for the Future, Part 1 & 2

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
How do we democratize design? Diébédo Francis Kéré discusses the origins of his practice, and how good design builds community.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

75 | New Forms of Design Education for New Forms of Cities

Podcast
Can design education promote social justice? Christian Benimana is a senior principal and managing director at Mass Design. He also is the founder of the African Design Center.
  • Advocacy
  • Environment
  • Urban Strategies

81 | The Resiliency of Right Now

Podcast
Is Resilience Still Relevant? Alexander Rose of the Long Now Foundation speaks with us about how designers can design better by thinking differently about time.
  • Advocacy
  • Environment
  • Resilience

83 | Human-powered Resilience in Action

Podcast
Social Design Circle Honoree
Is Resilience Still Relevant? Architect Hsieh Ying-Chun joins host Eric Cesal to talk about how people can power rebuilding after disaster.
  • Community Development
  • Conflict and Disaster
  • Housing
  • Resilience
  • Urban Strategies

84-85 | Architecture, Wake Up, It’s a New Day, Part 1 & 2

Podcast
Is Resilience Still Relevant? Mario and Nuno do Rosario discuss the history of design in Mozambique from Independence to the present-day.
  • Community Development
  • Conflict and Disaster
  • Resilience
  • Urban Strategies

Active Social Architecture

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Does school design have value beyond creating a place to educate children? A Rwanda-based practice, Active Social Architecture (ASA) focuses on social architecture, affordable solutions, and the use of local materials.
  • Community Development
  • Healthcare
  • Housing

Adbusters

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Does Design Create Politics or Vice Versa? Adbusters Media Foundation has launched numerous international campaigns, including Buy Nothing Day, TV Turnoff Week, and Occupy Wall Street, and is known for their "subvertisements" that spoof popular advertisements. Additionally, it publishes the reader-supported, advertising-free Adbusters, an activist magazine devoted to challenging consumerism.
  • Advocacy

Al Borde

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
How does constraint lead to creativity? Al Borde is a collaborative and experimental architecture studio that uses participatory processes and research to work within extreme constraints.
  • Community Development

Alliance of Community Trainers

CSF Grantee
Can design increase civic engagement? The Alliance of Community Trainers works with communities to create a shared vision and to empower communities with tools for problem solving, conflict resolution, alternative technology, environmental sustainability and more.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development
  • Conflict and Disaster
  • Environment
  • Resilience
  • Urban Strategies

Anna Heringer

2009 Prize Winner
Video
Is sustainability about working within scarcity or finding natural abundance? Anna Heringer is an award-winning leader in architecture who utilizes the skills of the communities she works in as well as low-tech, sustainable materials like mud and bamboo.
  • Community Development
  • Environment
  • Resilience

Antonio Scarponi

2008 Prize Winner
Video
Are you ready to co-opt mass consumerism? Dr. Antonio Scarponi is an architect, designer, educator, and the founder of Conceptual Devices, a Zurich-based office with the mission to develop design strategies with social, economic, and poetic impact.
  • Environment

Aprovecho Research Center

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Are open source, global standards for clean, efficient cook stoves possible? Aprovecho Research Center (ARC) is dedicated to researching, developing, and disseminating appropriate technological solutions for meeting the basic human needs of refugees and impoverished people.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

Ashok Gadgil

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can low cost, simple designs be implemented at scale? For over twenty years, US engineer Dr. Ashok Gadgil’s work has focused on designing low-cost technologies that help the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.
  • Advocacy
  • Environment
  • Healthcare

Auroville Earth Institute

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can traditional building techniques serve modern needs? Auroville Earth Institute (AVEI) is a pioneering organization that has led in research and implementation of earth-based & sustainable building.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Barefoot College

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can the rural poor attain self-sufficiency through design? Barefoot College is an Indian organization that encourages the rural poor to attain self-sufficiency by providing training in education, technology, and work skills.
  • Community Development
  • Education

Basurama

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can waste be a resource for urban transformation? Best known for creating colorful playgrounds from common landfill waste, Basurama is a collective of Spanish artists whose projects provide cultural amenities while facilitating wider conversations about waste as a resource.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Blue Star Integrative Studio

CSF Grantee
How can design support community development? Blue Star Integrative Studio (BSIS) is a Tribally Owned, Indigenous American professional services firm in Tulsa, Oklahoma offering feasibility studies, planning, and design services. It illuminates opportunities through collaboration to support the sustainability of people, places, and the planet.
  • Advocacy
  • Environment
  • Housing

BuildX Studio (formerly Orkidstudio)

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
How do we design with scarcity? BuildX Studio (formerly Orkidstudio) is a Nairobi-based architectural, engineering, and construction company creating real estate projects for positive social and environmental impact.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
How is consideration of the full life cycle of products a means to achieve sustainability? The Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems designs systems that identify and utilize the full life cycle of products, buildings and regions, resulting in smarter and more sustainable practices.
  • Advocacy
  • Environment

City Repair Project

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
How can public space be reclaimed to forge stronger communities? Portland, Oregon-based City Repair Project (CRP) seeks to address America’s lack of community gathering spaces by empowering neighborhoods to reclaim public spaces and creatively repurpose them to bring people together.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Coloco

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can a city work as an ecosystem? Coloco is a collective of landscapers, artists, urban planners, and botanists working in a variety of mediums including mapping, physical gardening, and advocacy.
  • Community Development
  • Environment
  • Urban Strategies

Communitere

Social Design Circle Honoree
Should disaster victims be empowered to create their own recovery? Communitere is an international disaster nonprofit operating that creates dynamic, collaborative hubs in communities affected by disaster, empowering residents to take an active role in their own recovery.
  • Community Development
  • Conflict and Disaster

Ctrl+Z

Social Design Circle Honoree
Is architecture more about community participation than materials? Ctrl+Z Architecture practices collaborative, participatory, self-construction initiatives throughout the world. It believes that at its heart, architecture is more about interaction with communities than specific materials or approaches.
  • Community Development
  • Environment
  • Urban Strategies

David Baker Architects

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can affordable housing be more than just housing that is affordable? David Baker Architects is a Bay Area and Atlanta-based firm specializing in affordable housing, green building, and transit-oriented development. With its focus on integrating elegant, contemporary aesthetics with energy conservation and humanity, its work sets the standard for public housing.
  • Housing

Design for Extreme Affordability

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can social change be taught? Design for Extreme Affordability is a graduate course offered by Stanford University where students are asked to design products and services which will change the lives of the world’s poorest citizens.
  • Advocacy
  • Healthcare

Earth Activist Training

CSF Grantee
Can we design education for environmental sustainability? Author, activist and founder Starhawk offers Earth Activist Training in permaculture, nature awareness, earth based spirituality and more for individuals, teachers and community groups.
  • Community Development
  • Environment
  • Resilience
  • Urban Strategies

Ecosistema Urbano

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can urban biodiversity be designed? Ecosistema Urbano is a Madrid-based architecture and design firm founded in 2005 by Belinda Tato and Jose Luis Vallejo.
  • Urban Strategies

Elemental

2010 Prize Winner
Video
Can public housing be designed to encourage resident ownership? ELEMENTAL engages in projects ranging from housing to public space to objects to buildings, covering a wide spectrum of interests. One of the firm´s hallmarks is participatory design, in which the architects work closely with the client and users.
  • Community Development
  • Housing

Equalize Health (Formerly D-Rev)

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can high quality, low cost medical equipment be broadly available to the world’s poorest? Equalize Health (formerly D-Rev) is a not-for-profit medical technology company working to prevent people lacking access to treatment from suffering treatable conditions.
  • Advocacy
  • Healthcare

Fallen Fruit

Social Design Circle Honoree
What if our cities become places that grow natural resources for anyone to share? The art collective Fallen Fruit plants fruit trees in public spaces for everyone to share. They invite citizens to re-imagine public participation, urban space and the meaning of community.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Francis Kéré

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can an architect truly straddle both first world success and community development in the developing world? Diébédo Francis Kéré is a Pritzker Architecture Prize winning Burkinabé architect recognized for creating innovative works that are often sustainable and collaborative in nature.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Goonj

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
How can donated clothing be translated into community renewal? Goonj is a non-­governmental organization based in Delhi since 1998 which undertakes poverty alleviation work, using the city's discard as material to fuel widespread development work across village India.
  • Conflict and Disaster
  • Environment

Gyaw Gyaw

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can architecture help stateless people put down roots? Gyaw Gyaw is a community development non-profit that works with the Karen people at the border between Myanmar and Thailand. The organization combines low-cost, sustainable building techniques with community input to ensure designs are appropriate to the customs and culture of each village.
  • Community Development
  • Conflict and Disaster
  • Environment

Heritage Foundation of Pakistan

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can post disaster housing be sustainable and respectful of local vernacular? The Heritage Foundation of Pakistan is one of the world’s most successful providers of sustainable, resilient disaster relief structures. They are also involved in historic conservation projects in Pakistani villages.
  • Resilience

Himanshu Parikh

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
What happens when gravity replaces modern technology as a tool to design urban infrastructure? Himanshu Parikh is an Indian engineer who developed of the concept of ‘slum networking,’ which stems from how the traditional organization of cities was based on natural features such as topography and gravity.
  • Environment
  • Healthcare
  • Housing

Hsieh Ying-Chun

2011 Prize Winner
Video
How can a community contribute to a post-disaster rebuilding process? Hsieh Ying-Chun is a Taiwanese architect who works throughout Asia training villagers to build locally-appropriate dwellings in response to earthquake devastation.
  • Conflict and Disaster
  • Environment
  • Housing

Hunnarshala

2013 Prize Winner
Video
How can artisans build a resilient community? Hunnarshala works with artisans to combine traditional building techniques with innovation. They are also engaged in training and empowering artisan entrepreneurs, bringing them into the mainstream of construction.
  • Conflict and Disaster
  • Environment
  • Housing

Inteligencias Colectivas

Social Design Circle Honoree
What happens when traditional and modern design techniques are blended? Inteligencias Colectivas focuses on the ‘fringe’ of construction practice. Between highly mechanized construction and ancient methods are blended practices with their own wisdom. Inteligencias Colectivas¬ collects, collates and shares these.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development
  • Urban Strategies

Interboro

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
How can designers create a more inclusive space? Interboro is an architecture, urban design, and planning firm working across scales, from buildings to communities. They are known for a participatory, place-specific approach that helps build consensus around complex projects.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development

Isla Urbana

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can DIY harvesting of rainwater solve a water crisis? Isla Urbana is a project dedicated to contributing to water sustainability in Mexico through rainwater harvesting.
  • Advocacy
  • Environment

Jonathan Kirschenfeld

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can excellent design be for everyone? Jonathan Kirschenfeld is a New York architect recognized for design excellence over a wide range of environmentally and socially sustainable projects including supportive housing, childcare centers, recreation, and performance facilities.
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Housing

Kounkuey Design Initiative

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
How can conversation with residents and deep engagement lead to community empowerment? Kounkuey Design Initiative is a non-profit based in Kenya and California. Using extensive community engagement, KDI reveals systemic needs and enlists the community in constructing solutions.
  • Community Development
  • Resilience

L’Oeuf

Social Design Circle Honoree
What is the definition of sustainability? Montreal-based L’Oeuf is known for sustainable architecture, urban housing and renovation. It emphasizes building community over building buildings; the interplay between building, occupant and environment inspires innovation.
  • Environment
  • Housing

Lacaton & Vassal

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Is it better to refurbish and reuse than rebuild? Run by the duo it is named for, Lacaton & Vassal is an award-winning architecture firm using innovative design to promote social justice, sustainability, and the repurposing of materials.
  • Advocacy
  • Housing

Liter of Light

2012 Prize Winner
Video
Can a plastic bottle bring light where electricity is scarce? Philippines based Liter of light is a global, open-source, grassroots movement committed to providing affordable, sustainable light to people with limited or no access to electricity.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development
  • Resilience

Luyanda Mpahlwa

2008 Prize Winner
Video
Can a community be built with sand? Luyanda Mpahlwa is part of a vanguard of designers reshaping and re-envisioning South Africa’s post-apartheid architectural landscape.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development
  • Housing

Marjetica Potrč

2008 Prize Winner
Video
Can participatory design inspire sustainable prosperity? Marjetica Potrč is an artist and architect who works on community-based projects characterized by participatory design and a concern for sustainability.
  • Community Development
  • Education
  • Environment

MASS Design Group

2012 Prize Winner
Video
Why invest in architecture in resource-limited settings? Model of Architecture Serving Society (MASS Design) is a Boston-based architectural practice focusing on advocacy, the education of the next generation of architects, and the impacts of architecture on human lives.
  • Advocacy
  • Community Development
  • Conflict and Disaster
  • Healthcare

Nance Klehm

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can a city work as an ecosystem? “Radical ecologist” Nance Klehm fosters awareness of how plants and animals coexist. She is an ecological systems designer, landscaper, horticultural consultant and permacultural grower focused on soil, ecology and community.
  • Environment

Open Source Ecology

Social Design Circle Honoree
What are the fifty machines essential to modern life—and can their designs be open-sourced? Open Source Ecology is dedicated to an open-source economy. At their core are plans for fifty fundamental machines; what is required to create a small, modern civilization.
  • Environment

Plan Selva

Social Design Circle Honoree
How can design address the problem of education for internally neglected communities? Plan Selva is the Peruvian Education Ministry’s plan to bring quality education to remote regions. The result self-empowers indigenous people to cultivate their knowledge and live productively in the Amazon.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Prinzessinnengärten

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Why should citizens and activists reclaim public space? Prinzessinnengärten is a bottom-up community garden in Berlin notable for both its scale and its ingenuity in starting a public conversation about the democratic use of public space.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Proximity Designs

2013 Prize Winner
CSF Grantee
Video
Can design help raise the income of small hold farmers in Myanmar? Proximity Designs is a not-for-profit social enterprise working to reduce poverty for rural families in Myanmar.
  • Advocacy
  • Education
  • Environment

Public Architecture

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
How can standard design firms be supported in pro-bono work? San Francisco based Public Architecture formalizes pro bono service within architecture, interiors and landscape design. Their flagship program, The One Percent, supports firms in donating 1% of their time to pro-bono work.
  • Advocacy

Repair Café

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can anyone repair everyday objects? The Repair Café is both an organization and a global network of cafés that emphasize the repair of everyday objects in order to promote a culture of sustainability and reuse.
  • Environment

RootStudio

Social Design Circle Honoree
How do we design with scarcity? RootStudio is a multidisciplinary design studio originating in Oaxaca City, Mexico that develops structures and housing for communities in need.
  • Community Development
  • Housing

Rural Studio

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can we design community engagement? The Rural Studio is a groundbreaking off-campus designbuild program of Auburn University. Founded in 1993 by D.K. Ruth and Samuel Mockbee, the program established a new breed of community-­based design education.
  • Community Development
  • Housing

Rural Urban Framework (RUF)

2015 Prize Winner
Video
Can design address China’s rural to urban migration? Rural Urban Frameworks (RUF) is a research and design collaborative working to help recover and rebuild villages across China that have been affected by the massive rural-to-urban migrations.
  • Community Development
  • Housing

Sanergy

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can waste management create jobs and improve hygiene? Launched in Nairobi’s slums, Sanergy is a business and sanitation initiative. Low-cost pay toilets are run by locals as a business. Waste is processed into fertilizer and sold to commercial farms.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Semillas para el Desarrollo Sostenible

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can schools address development challenges? Semillas para el Desarrollo Sostenible (“Seeds for Sustainable Development”) is a Peruvian NGO providing service to public and private entities in the design of educational, residential, and exhibition spaces, community centers, and spaces of public, cultural and heritage interest.
  • Community Development
  • Education

Sergio Palleroni

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
CSF Grantee
Can social impact design be taught? Professor Sergio Palleroni has been a long-standing leader, thinker, practitioner and educator in the field of social impact design, with a career that predates the term ‘public interest design.’ Drawing inspiration from educator/philosophers like Paolo Freire and Ivan Illych, Palleroni began working in the 1980’s in Nicaragua, working for the Sandinista government in the aftermath of the Nicaraguan revolution. From there, his work took him to Mexico, where he worked on reconstruction after the Mexico City earthquake. These experiences became the basis of a revolutionary pedagogy begun in the late 1980s. While the idea of a design/build studio, or a studio abroad program, was not new, the philosophy at the core of Palleroni’s teaching was a watershed in architectural education. In 1995, Palleroni founded the BASIC Initiative, a groundbreaking educational program between Portland State University and the University of Texas at Austin which sought to move students out of the design studio and into communities. It supports a range of projects working with poor and underserved constituencies. For example, housing and community services for migrant farm workers, housing for Native Americans and schools and health clinics in central Mexico. These programs combine appropriate technologies with reinforcing local values to inspire self-initiated development. Palleroni also developed and implemented the U.S.’s first academic certification for those wishing to pursue a career in public interest design. The certification requires coursework and field work addressing diverse issues including: non-profit management, urban poverty, ecology and citizen participation. Certification is open to both graduate students and working professionals interested in entering the field of social design. Along the way, Palleroni has trained and mentored generations of public interest designers who continue to influence the field in their own way. As a leading member of the Design for the Common Good Network, a network of design consortiums from around the globe, Palleroni has worked towards creating spaces for new work in the field of social design to find a growing audience and greater support and engagement through biennial conferences and exhibitions. He has succeeded in being a revolutionary for the past thirty years and shows no signs of stopping. We had an opportunity to speak with Sergio Palleroni about his thirty year career in Social Impact Design on Social Design Insights. Listen to the episodes below.
  • Advocacy
  • Education

Shawn Frayne

2008 Prize Winner
Video
Can wind energy be harnessed with a handheld device? Shawn Frayne invented a non-turbine wind-powered generator that could help people in poor communities power lamps, keep small vaccine refrigerators cool and charge cell phones for relatively little cost.
  • Environment

Superuse Studios

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
Can a “blue” economy be created where one business' waste is raw materials for another? Rotterdam based Superuse Studios is at the leading edge of ecological thought. Their work pioneers ideas around an economy where the waste of one business becomes raw materials for another.
  • Environment

TAMassociati/Emergency

2013 Prize Winner
Video
How can architecture bring dignity in war-torn regions? Studio TAMassociati is a nonprofit architecture firm that specializes in designing healthcare facilities in war-torn areas, highlighting the connection between the built environment and the basic needs of life.
  • Conflict and Disaster
  • Healthcare

The Association La Voûte Nubienne

Prize Winner
Can resurrecting building techniques from antiquity solve a West African housing crisis? West Africans face unique challenges in sourcing materials for sustainable, cost-efficient housing. In response, The Association la Voûte Nubienne (“AVN”) is bringing back an ages old technique: mud brick.
  • Housing

Transition Network

2009 Prize Winner
Video
Can your neighborhood become a self-sufficient community? The Transition Network is an organization whose role is to inspire, encourage, connect, support, and train communities as they create initiatives that rebuild resilience and reduce CO2 emissions.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Wes Janz

2008 Prize Winner
Video
How can designers address poverty in American cities? Dr. Wesley Janz is a Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Ball State University, Indiana and the founder of OneSmallProject. Currently, he is working to draw attention to the issues central to the U.S. prison system.
  • Advocacy
  • Environment
  • Housing
  • Urban Strategies

YA + K

Social Design Circle Honoree
Can design free the public from hierarchical constraints in society? YA+K brings young architects, urban planners, and designers together around projects that question and simultaneously invest in urban planning, architecture, design, and cultural action. The collective aims to create playful and evolving situations that stem from the imaginary to reality.
  • Community Development
  • Environment

Yatin Pandya

Social Design Circle Honoree
Podcast
How do we design with scarcity? Yatin Pandya is the founder and executive director of Footprints E.A.R.T.H. (Environment, Architecture, Research, Technology, Housing), an Indian professional services organization focused on research, design and the promotion of more sustainable urban futures.
  • Environment

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Sandhya Naidu Janardhan (@sandhyajnaidu) wins the Sandhya Naidu Janardhan (@sandhyajnaidu) wins the prestigious Berkeley Rupp Prize (@ced_berkeley)! We are so proud to have been a part of her and her Mumbai-based studio Community Design Agency's (@communitydesignagency) journey. Under Sandhya's leadership the studio has created benchmarks in what empathetic and collaborative neighborhood regeneration, rooted in sustainability, community building and joy, can truly look like. Many congratulations on this well-deserved recognition, Sandhya!  Read more about the award through the link in our bio and visit @communitydesignagency's page to learn more about their work.  Picture credits: Community Design Agency, Rajesh Vora, Tejinder Singh Khamkha  #berkeleyruppprize #communitybasedesign #mumbai #slumredevelopment #participatorydesign #publichousing
Ep. 62: Finding Empathy, Making Art Snippet from Ep. 62: Finding Empathy, Making Art  Snippet from Dr Suzanne Lacy's (@suzanne.lacy) conversation with @ericjcesal on the #SocialDesignInsights #Podcast  The #SocialDesignCircle honoree recently launched the second iteration of her ongoing project, Uncertain Futures, which looks at the inequalities and insecurities facing women over 50 in Manchester, England, relating to work and worklessness. Produced in collaboration with Manchester Art Gallery (@mcrartgallery), 2 universities and an Advisory Group of 15 women, the second iteration sees the launch of a short film and its research findings following interviews of a 100 women over 50 and the impact of interconnected issues of gender, age, labour, class, migration, status, disability and race on women's paid and unpaid work. The impressive case study has also been featured among UN's Decade of Healthy Ageing Progress Report 2021-2023. Click on the link in our bio to learn more about Uncertain Futures and to listen to Dr. Lacy on the Social Design Insights podcast.  Images from Dr Lacy's performance installations De tu Puno y Letra (2014-15) and The Circle and The Square (2015-17)  #performancearts #suzannelacy #artactivism
As a supporter of the Architects Foundation's (@oc As a supporter of the Architects Foundation's (@octagonmuseum) Diversity Advancement Scholarship, that invests in the next generation to bring diversity in the field of design and architecture, CSF is proud to be a part of Zuleika Baldeo's journey as she pursues her degree from Morgan State University. CSF co-founders and directors Clifford Curry and Dr. Delight Stone meet with her often to offer support and mentorship, which she says is as valuable as the financial support she is receiving from the scholarship funded by the duo. Click on the link in the bio to read more about Zuleika's journey.  Philanthropy partners of @aianational, the Architects Foundation is launching its year end #GivingTuesday campaign today and you can learn more about supporting students like Zuleika by visiting @octagonmuseum's website.  #aianational #architecturescholarship #scholarship #scholarships #givingtuesday #CSF #CurryStoneFoundation #AIA #architectsfoundation #diversityscholarship #diversityscholars #architectsfordiversity #hbcu #blackdesigners #blackarchitects #blackarchitecture #designjustice #morganonsocial #howarduniversity #howardu #aias #nomas #minorityarchitecturestudents #minorityarchitects #minoritydesigners
Iyad Issa, architect at the Curry Stone Design Pri Iyad Issa, architect at the Curry Stone Design Prize winning  studio @riwaq_palestine and Curator of the Engaged Margins exhibit at the @venice.architecture.biennale, talks about the restoration of the archeological site Kafr 'Aqab in the outskirts of Jerusalem and how restoration projects should create room for pause and reflection in the regeneration of physical spaces.  The work is on display till 26th November as a part of the Time Space Existence exhibition at Pallazzo Bembo in Venice and we encourage those attending the Biennale to engage with the nature and context of Riwaq's work and support their efforts.  Video courtesy: European Cultural Center, Italy/YouTube @ecc_italy  Cover Image courtesy: RIWAQ @riwaq_palestine  #riwaq #palestine #jerusalem #architecture #venicebiennale #venicearchitecturebiennale #venicebiennale2023 #conservation #restorativedesign #restorativearchitecture #currystonefoundation #currystonedesignprize #CurryStone #currystonedesign #conservativearchitecture #palestinianheritage #architecturalheritage #architecturalheritageconservation

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The Curry Stone Foundation (CSF) is the brainchild of architect, urban planner and developer Clifford Curry, FAIA, and the historical archeologist Dr. Delight Stone, RPA. It was inspired by a shared conviction that design thinking and design actions can—and should, serve those wishing to contribute to community vitality and human dignity. Most of all, we believe that design should be available to those most in need.

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REQUESTS FOR FUNDING

Marginalized communities around the world are still dealing with the aftermath of COVID-19. The looming recession and geo-political issues have also been a major cause of concern for all.

Curry Stone Foundation continues to receive numerous requests for support. Many of these causes have significant merit, and we understand the need is great.

We continue to honor our prior commitments, to projects in India and elsewhere, who have needed additional support to reach completion. Since these projects impact fragile, marginalized populations, and are at the crucial stage of scaling, our funds are committed to them.

For these reasons, we will not be able to assist financially with any immediate requests for funds.

Appreciatively,

Curry Stone Foundation

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